


I Lost You (And I Came Back)

by Howlingdawn



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Vulcan!Temperance, but it's Booth and he's fine now, there is a flashback to major character death, this is my first Bones fic so I hope the characterizations aren't horrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 16:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingdawn/pseuds/Howlingdawn
Summary: The last time they were together before Booth sacrificed himself to save the ship, he left T'Emp with some mixed messages. Now that he's been resurrected, he has a chance to clear things up.





	I Lost You (And I Came Back)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [myglassesaredirty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/myglassesaredirty/gifts).

> Happy birthday, Claire! This isn't originally what I had in mind, but that was turning out way too long and not good at all, so I switched to this and it turned out mUch better (and with a lot more B&B). I hope you like it!

Booth woke with a groan. He wanted to move, to sit up, but while nothing hurt, exactly, everything felt… weak. Heavy. Particularly his right hand.

“Booth?”

He turned his head towards her voice. “T’Emp?”

He managed to crack his eyes open just in time to see her head to the door, leaning out to call for someone. As she left his side, the extra weight on his right hand disappeared. He furrowed his brows at the appendage.

She came back with Hodgins at her side. “Morning, sunshine,” he greeted cheerfully.

“What happened?” Booth said, his tired lips mumbling the words.

“You died,” Hodgins said, leaning over the monitor beside the biobed. Looking around, Booth realized he was in a hospital room, the glass wall to his left overlooking San Francisco. “And I went into Doctor Frankenstein mode and brought you back.”

“How?”

“Pelant’s super blood,” Hodgins explained, running a tricorder over him. “Whatever genetically enhanced properties it has, a transfusion cured your irradiated cells. You’re lucky I tested the stuff out on that awesome bug corpse we found on Nibiru.”

Booth huffed a laugh. “How’d you catch him?”

Hodgins nodded at T’Emp, awkwardly lingering in the shadows. “The ladies took care of that.”

Called to attention, she stepped into the light, hands clasped behind her back and head slightly ducked. She had decided to let her hair grow out over the last year, though she still kept it tucked behind her ears, and as the light spilled across the combination of pale pointed tips against dark brunette locks, Booth realized he hadn’t appreciated the beauty of that as much as he should have. “You saved my life.”

“Angela and I had something to do with it too,” Hodgins muttered.

Booth rolled his eyes affectionately, and T’Emp ignored him entirely, forcing herself to unclasp her hands and let them hang loosely at her sides. “You saved my life, Captain, and the lives of-”

His attention instinctively caught by the movement of her hands, his mind woke up in a blinding moment of clarity. “You were holding my hand.”

T’Emp froze mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open. “I…”

She couldn’t continue, and that was all the confirmation Booth needed. “Vulcans don’t lie, T’Emp.”

She glanced at Hodgins, searching for help, but he just shrugged, badly hiding a grin. “He caught you.”

She looked away from both of them, suddenly very interested in studying the readings displayed on the wall, and smoothed her hair behind her ear. “Yes. I was holding your hand.”

“You know, that’s like the equivalent of sex for Vulcans-”

“_Hodgins_,” Booth and T’Emp interrupted him simultaneously.

“What? It is!”

Booth stared at him, widening his eyes and looking sharply at the door.

He held his hands up, dropping his tricorder. “Ok, fine, I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll just leave you two alone, then.” He paused in the doorway, looking over his shoulder with mischief in his eyes. “Just don’t get his heartrate up too high, unless, of course, you want an awkward interruption.”

“Don’t make me call Angela,” Booth threatened.

Hodgins darted outside, the sparkle in his eyes not the least bit put out.

Silence fell in his wake. T’Emp pulled her chair up to sit, still avoiding Booth’s eyes as she unnecessarily smoothed her uniform. “I’ve never told you this, but… you look really good in that uniform. The blue brings out your eyes.”

Just as he’d hoped, she finally leveled him a look that would’ve been smug if she were human. “I know.”

He smiled. “I know you do. I just thought I’d say it, if we’re at the holding hands stage.”

“We are not at a ‘stage.’”

_“I will go with you, Captain.”_

_Booth marched through the corridors, stubbornly ignoring his first officer. “No, I need you on the bridge.”_

_“I cannot allow you to do this!” She grabbed his shoulder, forcing him to stop and face her. “It is my function aboard this ship to advise you in making the wisest decisions possible, something I firmly believe you are incapable of doing in this moment.”_

_“You’re right!” Booth burst out._

_T’Emp blinked, surprised to get his agreement so easily. Or so fiercely._

_“What I’m about to do, it doesn’t make any sense, it’s not logical, it is a gut feeling,” Booth said._

_T’Emp opened her mouth, probably ready to explain to him yet again how illogical gut feelings were._

_Booth licked his lips, controlling his frustration before continuing. “Look, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I only know what I _can _do. The _Jeffersonian _and her crew need someone in that chair who knows what they’re doing. And that’s not me, T’Emp. That’s you.”_

_“Booth…”_

_T’Emp took half a step closer, all but eliminating what little space there was between them. Distress shone in her eyes, her oh so human eyes, and her hand stuttered up and down, as if she were torn between maintaining a professional, Vulcan distance, and holding him again. He wanted nothing more than to encourage her, to let her in, to fall into her arms and cling on for dear life, and his gaze flickered to her lips, and her gaze flickered to his lips, and they were leaning in… in… in…_

No. Not like this.

_He turned away, leaving her alone in the corridor, staring after him._

“Really?” he murmured. “You seemed ready to enter a stage in the corridor.”

“You left.”

Her tone was clipped, her words short, and he winced. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have walked away like that-”

“That is not what I meant. That is not _when _I meant.”

The tremor in her voice brought the memory of his final moments flooding back to him.

_The radiation burned through his veins, the hot wall propping him up offering little comfort. His breaths came in short, ragged gasps. Above him, kneeling helplessly on the other side of the glass, T’Emp watched him struggle with tears in her eyes, tears on her cheeks. He had been so pissed at her just a few hours ago for being too emotionless, but now, looking at the blatant emotion that was so _wrong _on her, he wanted nothing more than to make her feel better. Feel less._

_In a spurt of strength, he pressed his palm to the glass between them. Instinctively, she lifted one trembling hand, her fingers forming the Vulcan salute, and pressed her palm to his. Forcing his numb fingers to move, Booth pushed his fingers to copy her. It wasn’t exactly the kiss they had almost shared, but in this moment, it meant just as much and more._

_They looked up from their almost joined hands to each other. She looked a little steadier, a little more like herself, and that made him smile._

_Or, at least, he tried to._

_His strength gave out before he could make his lips move._

She clasped her hands in her lap, a white-knuckled grip, and refused to look at him. “When I saw you lying there and realized you would not get up… I wanted us to be more, and for a moment in the corridor I thought you did as well, but then you _left_. Without so much as a second thought.”

“You- you think I didn’t think about you?”

“I know you thought of me,” she corrected. “But only as a member of your crew.”

“Tempy,” he whispered. “Look at me. Please.”

At the pleading note in his tone, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He decided to count that.

“There wasn’t a moment that went by in there that I didn’t think about you,” he told her. “Yes, sometimes it was as a member of my crew, but when I realized what I had to do? _God_, I wished I’d kissed you. When the radiation was killing me and I thought I couldn’t climb another inch, I thought of how cute you are when you discover something new and fascinating, and I found the strength to keep going. When I couldn’t kick that damn warp core back into alignment, I thought of you on the bridge waiting for a miracle, and I found the strength I needed. And the only thing that got me out of there and to that door? You. I just wanted one more minute with you, T’Emp. One… one more minute with the woman I love.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide, tears shimmering in them. “I _lost _you.”

He held his hand out, and after a long moment, she took it. Their fingers twined together, fitting perfectly, as if their hands were made to hold the other. “I’m back,” he said. “And I know it’s illogical to say I won’t die again, but believe me, I have no plans to do that any time soon. I can’t… I don’t want to hurt you like that again. Ever.”

She squeezed him tight, and he knew her Vulcan strength could crush him in a heartbeat, but he felt safe in her grasp. She shifted to sit on the edge of his biobed, and he pushed himself up onto his elbow, her free arm slipping around his back, supporting him, only a few inches between their lips. “I’m not walking away this time,” he promised softly. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

Her gaze flickered to his lips, and his gaze flickered to her lips, and they were leaning in… in… in.

Her lips were soft, tasting of the cherry chapstick Angela had given her and the tea she loved to drink. Booth’s eyes drifted shut as he lifted his arm, wrapping it around her shoulders. She released his hand only to slip her other arm around his back, one hand sliding into his hair, taking his weight, supporting him, holding him close. He had no strength with which to hold himself up, but he trusted her, the hand she no longer held rising to cup her cheek, his elbow leaving the mattress with no thought whatsoever of what would happen if she let go.

He pulled back a hair’s breadth to catch his breath, her breath tickling his lips. “I love you, T’Emp,” he breathed, opening his eyes slowly.

She said nothing. He hadn’t really expected her to. She rested her forehead against his, and what she did instead said more than he had ever dreamed of hearing.

For the first time since he had known her, T’Emp smiled. It was small and brilliant, fragile and beautiful like the brightest star in the night sky, and it said everything.

He closed his eyes, and for the most precious few minutes of his life, he just enjoyed being able to hold and be held by her.


End file.
